Below is the description of the origins of Armistice Day. It was initiated to honor PEACE and all those who were killed during World War I.
Armistice Day is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I, which took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning—the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.
The Initial or Very First Armistice Day was held at Buckingham Palace commencing with King George V hosting a “Banquet in Honour of The President of the French Republic” during the evening hours of November 10 1919. The First Official Armistice Day was subsequently held on the Grounds of Buckingham Palace on the Morning of November 11th 1919. This would set the trend for a day of Remembrance for decades to come.
In many parts of the world, people observe a one or more commonly a two minute moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. local time as a sign of respect in the first minute for the roughly 20 million people who died in the war, and in the second minute dedicated to the living left behind, generally understood to be wives, children and families left behind but deeply affected by the conflict. The two minute silence was proposed to Lord Milner by South African Sir Percy Fitzpatrick in 1919. This had been the practice in Cape Town from May 1918, although it had quickly spread through the Empire after a Reuters correspondent cabled a description of this daily ritual.
The U.S. changed the name to All Veterans Day in the early 1930’s. It is interesting that this change was made at the beginning of the last Fourth Turning. The holiday became about warriors rather than peace. It began to only honor soldiers rather than all those who had died in war. I wonder if Edward Bernays played a part in this “public relations” effort to promote war and warriors. He worked for Wilson during WWI to promote war through propaganda.
I have nothing against honoring veterans, especially veterans who had no choice in choosing whether to join the military. The 50,000 men who died in Vietnam for a false cause deserve to be honored, as well as the few remaining WWII and Korean War veterans.
I personally can’t work up too much enthusiasm for the men and women who have volunteered over the last 40 years. We haven’t had a draft since the early 1970s. Anyone who has joined the military since then made a choice to do so. It was nothing more than a job choice. The wars were wars of choice fought at the behest of arms dealers and corporate entities. All the wars were waged to protect corporate interests and our oil. They weren’t fought to defend our country from foreign aggression. There has been nothing noble about it. Those who have volunteered are nothing more than cannon fodder to generate profits for the military industrial complex.
I will not celebrate war or warriors on Armistice Day. I’ll think about all those who have died in senseless wars over the last 60 years, whether they be veterans or civilians.
Each year more than one trillion dollars goes up in smoke. More accurately, it is stolen from the middle and working classes and shipped off to the one percent. I am talking about the massive yearly bill to maintain the US empire. Washington’s warmongers have sold the lie that the military budget has been gutted under President Obama, but even when the “Sequester” was in effect military spending continued to increase. Only the pace of increase was reduced, not actual spending.
